On the Old Road, Vol. 2 | Page 4

such
and such a light; not a raking light, as I heard Sir Charles Eastlake
express it the other day, but rather an oblique and soft light, and not so
near the picture as to catch the eye painfully. That may be easily
obtained, and I think that all other questions after that are subordinate.
Dean of St. Paul's. Your proposition would require a great extent of

wall?--An immense extent of wall.
121. Chairman. I see you state in the pamphlet to which I have before
alluded, that it is of the highest importance that the works of each
master should be kept together. Would not such an arrangement
increase very much the size of the National Gallery?--I think not,
because I have only supposed in my plan that, at the utmost, two lines
of pictures should be admitted on the walls of the room; that being so,
you would be always able to put all the works of any master together
without any inconvenience or difficulty in fitting them to the size of the
room. Supposing that you put the large pictures high on the walls, then
it might be a question, of course, whether such and such a room or
compartment of the Gallery would hold the works of a particular master;
but supposing the pictures were all on a continuous line, you would
only stop with A and begin with B.
Then you would only have them on one level and one line?--In general;
that seems to me the common-sense principle.
Mr. Richmond. Then you disapprove of the whole of the European
hanging of pictures in galleries?--I think it very beautiful sometimes,
but not to be imitated. It produces most noble rooms. No one can but be
impressed with the first room at the Louvre, where you have the most
noble Venetian pictures one mass of fire on the four walls; but then
none of the details of those pictures can be seen.
Dean of St. Paul's. There you have a very fine general effect, but you
lose the effect of the beauties of each individual picture?--You lose all
the beauties, all the higher merits; you get merely your general idea. It
is a perfectly splendid room, of which a great part of the impression
depends upon the consciousness of the spectator that it is so costly.
122. Would you have those galleries in themselves richly
decorated?--Not richly, but pleasantly.
Brilliantly, but not too brightly?--Not too brightly. I have not gone into
that question, it being out of my way; but I think, generally, that great
care should be taken to give a certain splendor--a certain gorgeous

effect--so that the spectator may feel himself among splendid things; so
that there shall be no discomfort or meagerness, or want of respect for
the things which are being shown.
123. Mr. Richmond. Then do you think that Art would be more
worthily treated, and the public taste and artists better served, by
having even a smaller collection of works so arranged, than by a much
larger one merely housed and hung four or five deep, as in an auction
room?--Yes. But you put a difficult choice before me, because I do
think it a very important thing that we should have many pictures.
Totally new results might be obtained from a large gallery in which the
chronological arrangement was perfect, and whose curators prepared
for that chronological arrangement, by leaving gaps to be filled by
future acquisition; taking the greatest pains in the selection of the
examples, that they should be thoroughly characteristic; giving a
greater price for a picture which was thoroughly characteristic and
expressive of the habits of a nation; because it appears to me that one of
the main uses of Art at present is not so much as Art, but as teaching us
the feelings of nations. History only tells us what they did; Art tells us
their feelings, and why they did it: whether they were energetic and
fiery, or whether they were, as in the case of the Dutch, imitating minor
things, quiet and cold. All those expressions of feeling cannot come out
of History. Even the contemporary historian does not feel them; he
does not feel what his nation is; but get the works of the same master
together, the works of the same nation together, and the works of the
same century together, and see how the thing will force itself upon
everyone's observation.
124. Then you would not exclude the genuine work of inferior
masters?--Not by any means.
You would have the whole as far as you could obtain it?--Yes, as far as
it was characteristic; but I think you can hardly call an inferior master
one who does in the best possible way the thing he undertakes to do;
and I